Son of Mine
by Someone aka Me
Summary: The first and the last times Walburga ever hits Sirius with her hand. :: brief mentions of Wolfstar.


For my dearest Teddy, for GGE 2014. A mix of two of your requests. Hopefully that's all right :)

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Her hand cracks against his face and he startles back in surprise, pressing his hand to the slow burn that starts.

She's never hit him before. Through all of it, she's never actually hit him. Not physically. And not where it would show.

He's always assumed that it was because she doesn't like to get her hands dirty.

Usually, Kreacher does her dirty work. House elf magic is funny that way — untraceable, suited for things you'd rather no one knew about. And Kreacher, Kreacher knows how to make him feel the most pain without letting anything show.

Sometimes, when she's feeling particularly vicious or angry or even just petty, she'll use her wand, carve into his skin below where his clothing will cover but never anywhere else.

He doesn't know why she bothers to be so secretive.

It's not like anyone would care. Anyone with enough power to make it all end is already in the Blacks' pockets. Sirius knows better than to tell.

But this, the slap, seems to have surprised her as much as it has surprised him. He can feel her handprint blooming across his pale skin.

"Get out of here, you worthless thing." She scowls at him. Sirius, who had been expecting much worse for the crime of turning Cissa's hair blue (right in front of Lucius, which was the best part), doesn't want to question her sudden generosity. He scampers up the stairs.

He hesitates. Regulus's door is wide open.

Regulus hears his quiet tread and looks up. He sucks in a small gasp of air. "Sirius."

Sirius smiles faintly, but Reg scrambles out of bed, looking panicky.

The next thing Sirius knows, there are small, fourteen-year-old fingers skimming gently along the mark on his face.

"What happened?"

Sirius shakes his head, but Reg pulls him inside, shoving him down into the desk chair and then crawling under his bed.

"What happened?" he asks again, his voice muffled by the mattress. He shimmies out, clutching a white box. "Did she actually hit you? Usually she just screams, right? Is this about Cissa's hair?"

And, abruptly, Sirius thinks he might understand why his mother never lets anything show. _Because Regulus doesn't know_. Not really, at least. He does, at least a little, because he just pulled a first-aid kit out from under his bed, but as long as it doesn't show, Regulus can deny its existence.

For once, Sirius thinks, he and his mother are on the same side. They are both protecting Regulus. Regulus, who is so soft that he cries when Sirius kills the spiders in his bedroom, would not really be able to handle Sirius' reality. And Sirius doesn't force him to.

So, instead of breaking out into cynical, somewhat hysterical laughter like he wants to, he just nods wearily as Regulus sorts though salves.

And then Regulus' hand is at his cheek, fingers small and soft and cool with ointment.

"Don't dye Cissa's hair anymore, all right?" Regulus asks him, voice quiet.

Sirius just nods, as though ceasing to torment his cousins would actually make this all stop. It won't. He knows it won't. He has known, since the day he was sorted into Gryffindor, that he is not welcome as a Black anymore.

It is the first time she hits him. It is not the last. Not quite.

The second time, when her hand cracks against his face, she doesn't hesitate. He falls to the floor. She pulls out her wand.

"I won't have this kind of filth sullying my house, boy! I won't stand for it!" Her curse cuts into the skin of his chest. He doesn't make a sound.

"Do you hear me? I won't stand for it!" She punctuates her words with more curses, until his muscles are trembling with the force of keeping his reaction inside. "You will send that filthy, half-breed boy away from you; you will tell him never to return. No son of mine will be caught… _fraternizing_ with a _boy_." Her face twists into a sneer.

Sirius closes his eyes. The words against Remus hurt more than anything else. He isn't even sure how she found out. All that matters is that she did, and she reacted exactly as he expected her to.

His eyes whip open as pain flares through his whole body. He clenches his teeth together, hard. But when the pain fades, Sirius does exactly what he expects himself to, despite knowing that it is idiotic.

"Remus is not a filthy half-breed. And I won't tell him to leave me alone. I _won't_."

His eyes, he knows, are fierce and firm, the same way they get when he is protecting Regulus. Because there are three people in the world that Sirius Black cares about more than himself, and they are his little brother, Remus, and James — and James has never needed protecting.

It's stupid. He knows it is. It doesn't matter what his mother calls Remus. It doesn't matter what she thinks of Remus, doesn't even really matter what she thinks of him. But he can't stand hearing people insult Remus.

"Then you are no son of mine," she says. She has stopped yelling. Her voice is ice. It settles in Sirius' bones.

.

When he comes to, every part of Sirius aches. He is sprawled out on the hardwood floor, alone. He can feel his pulse in his limbs, throbbing with every heartbeat.

And he is done. _You are no son of mine._

He scrapes himself up off the floor and hauls himself up the stairs to his room.

Reg's door is shut. Sirius closes his eyes, breathes deeply, and walks past it. He tosses everything important into a trunk (not that he ever unpacks much anyway — this isn't home), shrinks it, and pockets it. He learned a long time ago that the Ministry doesn't give a damn what he does over the summer; they can't trace accurately enough to know it's him, so they don't try.

He hesitates one more time at Regulus' door, but that instinct to protect his little brother from this horror is still there.

Sirius knows exactly what will happen if he goes in. Regulus will see the marks. Demand to know what happened. He will cave, or Regulus will figure it out. Regulus will lash out at their mother, and she will lash back. Regulus might become her new target.

Sirius is not going to let that happen. If he just slips away in the night, Regulus should maintain his favored position.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, and he slips down the stairs.


End file.
